From the Courtroom to Carson City

Attorney, wellness advocate and Nevada Assembly candidate Chris Brandlin believes healthier communities begin long before someone walks into a doctor’s office.

For Chris Brandlin, the road from attorney to wellness advocate to political candidate wasn’t a carefully mapped career trajectory. It was shaped by a personal health crisis that fundamentally changed the way he viewed medicine, nutrition and, eventually, public policy.

Today, Brandlin is an attorney, public health researcher and longtime fitness and nutrition advocate who is running as the Republican candidate for Nevada State Assembly District 42. His opponent in the November 3 general election is Democratic incumbent Tracy Brown-May.

Ask Brandlin what connects law, fitness, nutrition, public health and politics, and his answer comes back to one idea: using what he has learned through his own experiences to change the system for others. “When I see what happened to me and what’s happening to others, that’s where I can use my legal background to make changes,” he says.

When Health Became Personal

Brandlin’s interest in wellness predates his political ambitions. A former personal trainer and natural bodybuilder, he spent years immersed in fitness and nutrition. But his perspective became far more personal after a serious illness led to medications which caused gastrointestinal problems, multiple surgeries and complications that, according to Brandlin, left him searching for alternatives.

He describes that period as a turning point. After surgery and recurring infections, Brandlin says he eventually decided to explore fasting, elimination diets and other nutritional approaches. He ultimately adopted a largely carnivore diet, which he credits as an important part of his own recovery.

His experience should not be interpreted as a medical recommendation for others, particularly his use of prolonged fasting or a highly restrictive diet, but it explains why Brandlin has become so outspoken about nutrition, lifestyle and patient choice.

For him, the experience raised a larger question: Why, he wondered, wasn’t lifestyle receiving more attention alongside conventional medicine? “I’ve seen most of the improvements to actual health when just doing a really healthy lifestyle and diet,” Brandlin says. His philosophy today centers heavily on what he describes as prevention before prescription.

That does not mean Brandlin believes conventional medicine has no place. During our conversation, he repeatedly acknowledged the importance of physicians, hospitals, emergency care and pharmaceuticals when medically necessary. His criticism is directed more toward what he sees as an overreliance on medication without enough attention to nutrition, exercise and lifestyle.

He would like to see physicians receive greater education in those areas and patients given more information about their options.

Turning Experience Into Education

Brandlin’s personal health journey eventually pushed him back into the classroom. Already an attorney, he pursued a PhD in Public Policy and Administration with a public-health emphasis at Walden University. His dissertation focused on ethical issues surrounding vaccine mandates, a subject that had become important to him during the COVID-19 era.

His background also includes formal education in dietetics, and he holds the Dietetic Technician, Registered (DTR) credential. He also brings years of experience in fitness as a former fitness trainer and former all-natural bodybuilding champion as he was Mr. Los Angeles Natural bodybuilding champion in 2010 during law school. That combination, law, public policy, nutrition and firsthand experience as a patient, now shapes much of his political platform.

Brandlin says he became particularly motivated to enter politics after publicly opposing COVID-era vaccine mandates. His objections centered primarily on medical choice and the ethics of requiring employees to receive a vaccine as a condition of employment. Whatever voters may think about those policies, the experience was pivotal for Brandlin. Rather than simply continuing to criticize government policy from outside the system, he decided he wanted a role in creating it.

Wellness as Public Policy

Health rarely receives the same attention in political campaigns as taxes, housing, education or public safety. Brandlin would like to change that. His campaign emphasizes public health, health freedom, education and public safety. He argues that states can encourage healthier behavior without requiring it.

One idea he discussed is creating financial incentives for people who actively participate in wellness programs, fitness programs or preventive health initiatives. “You shouldn’t make it a requirement,” he says. “But I think you should reward people that take care of their health.” That could mean exploring insurance incentives tied to participation in certain wellness activities or preventive care. Brandlin stresses that he views the concept as a reward rather than a punishment for those who do not participate.

He would also like to see greater recognition of wellness centers and nontraditional health services, while still recognizing the role of conventional healthcare. For Brandlin, the two worlds do not necessarily need to compete. “If I break my arm, or I get in a serious accident, you bet I’m going to a doctor,” he says while discussing Nevada’s medical system and provider shortages.

His larger argument is that healthcare should have room for both acute medical treatment and strategies designed to improve long-term health.

Starting With Nevada’s Kids

Some of Brandlin’s strongest opinions involve children. He wants Nevada to take another look at school nutrition, physical education and the amount of time children spend being physically active.

Brandlin says his experience in dietetics exposed him to institutional school food and left him concerned about heavily processed meals and long ingredient lists. He would like schools to emphasize simpler, nutrient-dense foods while increasing opportunities for physical activity. “I think we need to revisit the school lunch programs,” he says.

He also believes physical education has become too limited and would like to see movement become a bigger part of the school day.

Underlying those proposals is Brandlin’s belief that public health cannot focus exclusively on treating adults after chronic health problems develop. If Nevada wants to improve its long-term health outcomes, he argues, prevention needs to begin much earlier.

“Those are our future leaders,” Brandlin says of Nevada’s children. “That’s the future of Nevada.”

The Wellness Practices He Uses Himself

Brandlin doesn’t simply talk about wellness. His own routine could fill an entire wellness retreat itinerary.

Depending on the day, it can include intermittent fasting, exercise, sauna, cold exposure, red light therapy and hyperbaric oxygen therapy. He remains committed to an animal-based diet that he says works for his individual health circumstances.

He is also interested in regenerative medicine and emerging therapies, although he acknowledges that areas such as peptide therapy need additional research and quality control. During our conversation, he expressed concern about unregulated products purchased online and said greater oversight is needed.

His enthusiasm for modalities such as hyperbaric oxygen therapy is partly rooted in personal experience. Brandlin says he used the therapy while dealing with difficult-to-heal skin lesions following his surgeries and believes it played an important role in his recovery.

Again, Brandlin’s experience is personal and does not establish that the same therapies or dietary approaches are appropriate for everyone. But it helps explain the intensity behind his wellness advocacy.

He isn’t discussing health as an abstract campaign issue. He sees it through the lens of someone who says he spent years trying to regain his own.

Bringing Wellness Into the Political Conversation

Brandlin is calling for greater transparency around the relationship between pharmaceutical companies, research and politics. During our interview, he said he does not believe political candidates should accept pharmaceutical-industry money directly or indirectly and argued that patients deserve clearer disclosure about medication risks and side effects.

Among the policies he says he would pursue is legislation targeting cultivated, or “lab-grown,” meat in Nevada. He also wants to explore policies that encourage wellness participation and examine barriers that may make it more difficult for healthcare professionals licensed elsewhere to practice in Nevada. These positions are likely to generate debate, particularly in areas where nutrition science, emerging technology, healthcare regulation and individual freedom intersect.

Brandlin appears comfortable with that. His political identity has grown directly out of his willingness to challenge systems he believes are not producing better health outcomes. At the center of it all is a deceptively simple question: What if public policy focused more attention on helping people become healthier in the first place?

A Healthier Nevada

Five years from now, Brandlin says he would like to see measurable improvements in Nevada’s health outcomes, with childhood health being a particularly important benchmark.

But perhaps his broader goal is cultural. He wants wellness to become part of the conversation in Carson City, not an afterthought relegated to doctors’ offices, gyms and wellness centers, but something considered when lawmakers discuss schools, healthcare, insurance and community resources.

Brandlin also wants more wellness professionals themselves to become involved in government and civic life. “Health is so neglected in all government,” he says.

His own path is certainly unconventional: personal trainer, natural bodybuilder, dietetics professional, attorney, patient, public-health researcher, wellness advocate and now political candidate. Yet to Brandlin, those chapters are not separate at all. They tell one story.

A health crisis changed the way he looked at medicine. That experience changed the way he looked at public policy. And public policy ultimately changed the direction of his career.

Now, as he campaigns for a seat in the Nevada Legislature, Brandlin is attempting to bring those worlds together, law, wellness and politics, with a belief that improving the health of Nevada begins not only with how we treat illness, but with how seriously we value health before illness begins.

For more information and to support his campaign, visit chrisbrandlin.com.